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kindness

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

This week, I'm praying kindness for my children. This is an area that our entire family is trying to work on, but especially for our kids, we desperately want them to grow up to be kind. One of my favorite quotes has always been, "It's better to be kind than to be right." I think it's because I really like to be right, and I need this continual reminder.

Ben and I have been working on this memory verse lately:

"God loves you and has chosen you as his own special people. So be gentle, kind, humble, meek, and patient. Put up with each other, and forgive anyone who does you wrong, just as Christ has forgiven you. Love is more important than anything else. It is what ties everything completely together."Colossians 3:12-14

I'm not quite finished with this verse, but this morning, I decided that this verse would be our next memory verse:

"Stop being bitter and angry and mad at others. Don’t yell at one another or curse each other or ever be rude.Instead, be kind and merciful, and forgive others, just as God forgave you because of Christ."

Ephesians 4:31-32

I like memorizing verses, especially ones that I'm really familiar with, in different versions. It helps to keep it fresh for me. I tend to think about what the verse means when the words are slightly different from the verse that I memorized as a child.

I'm thinking about trying some sort of poster with the verses on them. I write my verses on index cards and place them all over the house, but it's hard for the kids to see that sometimes. So maybe a poster will be the way to go for that. Mostly, I'm just tired of Ben ripping my index card off the desk where I've taped it to read the verse better.

I'm trying to do better at getting God's Word deep into my children's hearts. Our current Sunday School curriculum is fantastic for this because so many of the songs are just the memory verses set to music. The kids love it, and I love that God's Word is in their little brains without us having to work at it and without them even realizing it! The Word has power - even to change little children's (and their mama's!!) unkind words and deeds.